2023 was a another eventful year in the climbing world. From hard trad, boulder and sport ascents to Olympic selection and alpine-style climbs on remote Himalayan north faces, there's been plenty to report on and to provide inspiration for all.

Here are our top significant (and memorable) ascents of the year (in no particular order).

Adam Ondra flashes The Ace 8B

'The world's best climber' came to our small island in January and became the first person to flash Jerry Moffatt's iconic boulder, The Ace (8B), at Stanage Plantation. Short and sweet and one of Britain's most famous boulder problems, The Ace has attracted some of the best climbers of the last two decades, including Ben Moon, Malcolm Smith, Jan Hojer, Will Bosi, and Aidan Roberts.

At Font 8B, Ondra's flash of The Ace is the hardest gritstone flash of all time.

Bring Da Ruckus, XII 13, by Greg Boswell and Jamie Skelton

Greg Boswell and Jamie Skelton kicked off 2023 by making the first ascent of Scotland's hardest climb, Bring Da Ruckus, XII 13, on Shadow Buttress at Lochnagar. The route was climbed ground-up, with Boswell onsighting the upper headwall after having climbed through the 'monster roof' on his third attempt.

Billy Ridal and Alex Waterhouse free The Nose

Few would have bet on this pair of ex-competition climbers making the first British free ascent of The Nose on Yosemite's El Capitan, but they only went and did it — and in impressive time and style, too. Their regular updates on social media and their dispatches to our UKC Ticklist videos were entertaining and inspiring. Hats off, chaps.

Alex was the first to complete the route, putting Billy under some pressure before his flight home. An incredible feat for these two friends to achieve just after retiring from competition climbing.

Katie Lamb and Brooke Raboutou tick Box Therapy 8C

The hardest female boulder ticks of the year went to Americans Katie Lamb and Brooke Raboutou. Lamb was the first to break the 8C+ barrier with an ascent of Box Therapy and Raboutou was an obvious contender for a repeat of the problem after her brother Shawn Raboutou revealed that she had come close to doing it in a session previously. Raboutou subsequently suggested a downgrade to 8C.

Will Bosi makes first repeat of Burden of Dreams 9A (and Simon Lorenzi the second)

Scot Will Bosi brought a community together through his laid-back livestreams of his attempts on Burden of Dreams 9A, having also trained on a replica before flying out to Finland and featured the replica in his YouTube videos. Watching him make progress and seeing behind the scenes of world-class projecting might set a precedent for future big ticks. 

Nalle Hukkataival's Burden of Dreams 9A was the world's first 9A boulder in Lappnor, east of Helsinki, Finland. Initially known as the Lappnor Project, Nalle climbed the line in 2016 after over three years of effort to establish the world's hardest boulder problem.

Will climbed the problem on his first try of the day in his fourteenth session. In total, he spent 24 days working the line, combining time spent on both the replica and the boulder itself. Will confirmed the grade at 9A/V17.

Shortly before publishing this list, Belgian Simon Lorenzi made the third ascent despite freezing December conditions — becoming the first person to have both repeated and established a Font 9A boulder.

New 9A boulder by Charles Albert

Barefoot French boulderer Charles Albert made the first ascent of L'Ombre du Voyageur (The Traveler's Shadow), in Salève, Haute-Savoie and proposed 9A. The line is ten metres long and follows a crack through the roof of a cave on Mont Salève.

Babsi Zangerl repeats Meltdown 8c+

Retruning to Yosemite, Babsi Zangerl made the fourth ascent of Beth Rodden's Meltdown (5.14c/8c+) at Upper Cascade Falls. This rarely -repeated line was first climbed by Rodden in 2008 and, for a while, was not only the hardest single-pitch trad climb in the USA but also the hardest trad climb established by a woman at the time (and to our knowledge, remains so). 

Zangerl's repeat is the first by a woman, after Carlo Traversi and her partner Jacopo Larcher.

James Pearson completes Bon Voyage project, grades it E12

A long-standing project finally fell into the hands of James Pearson in February. Bon Voyage, which James began preparing for back in 2021, shares the same start as his 2017 route Le Voyage (8b+) (E10 7a), before moving left across an imposing blank face via a series of shallow pockets, and finishing up a technical arête.

Shortly before Christmas, James announced that he believes the grade to be E12, bringing him full-circle since The Walk of Life was downgraded to E9 6c in 2008.

Mary Eden and Mari Salvesen climb Black Mamba 5.14b

Early in December, American crack climber Mary Eden (AKA Tradprincess) made the first female ascent of Black Mamba 5.14b, a forty-plus metre long crack along the roof of a cave, first climbed by Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker in 2019. 

Norwegian climber Mari Augusta Salvesen has had a productive year of crack climbing, ticking numerous hard crack lines, from her native Norway to Yosemite and the Utah desert. In December, Mari made the fourth ascent, and second female ascent, of Black Mamba, 5.14b, in Canyonlands, Utah. Regarding the grade, she felt it was easier than the proposed grade of 5.14b/8c, but also suggested that the line plays to her strengths.

Pete Whittaker makes first ascent ascent of Crown Royale

Pete Whittaker had a productive year, with multiple significant ascents. In September, he made the first ascent of his longstanding multipitch trad project, Crown Royale 9a, at Profile Wall in Jøssingfjord, Norway. Pete described the route as 'up there with the hardest bit of trad climbing I've done'. He then repeated Mason Earle's crack testpiece, Stranger than Fiction, 5.14 (E10), in Bartlett Wash, Utah, in November.

Free Hallucinogen Wall ascent by Hazel Findlay and Angus Kille

Power couple Hazel Findlay and Angus Kille made a rare ascent of The Free Hallucinogen Wall (5.13c), in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado, USA. This bold, poorly-protected line was first established as an aid climb in 1980. the route received its first free ascent by the late Hansjörg Auer in 2011, and was given the grade of 5.13. Hazel and Angus swung leads during their ascent, and topped out after a twenty-five hour push, with twelve hours of climbing.

During their USA trip, Angus also freed El Niño (5.13b/c (8a+)) on El Capitan, with Hazel coming just short in being unable to free the final two hardest pitches.

Jim Pope onsights Strawberries E7 6b (and repeats an E9)

At the end of summer, all-rounder Jim Pope made the first repeat of James Taylor's Olwen E9 6c at Rhoscolyn and made a rare - and only the second British - onsight of the classic Strawberries E7 6b at Tremadog, both in North Wales. 

Prior to his trad ticking spree, Jim had just returned from the IFSC World Championships in Bern, Switzerland, where he was competing in both the Lead and Boulder events. 

Prinzip Hoffnung E9/E10 by Anna Hazlett

American climber Anna 'Hazelnutt' Hazlett repeated Prinzip Hoffnung (X+) (8b+/E9/10) on the Bürser Platte in Bürs, Austria, In March. The technical slab was first climbed by Beat Kammerlander in 2009. It weighs in at around F8b/+ and is protected by several microwires. Kammerlander originally climbed the line on bolts, but returned a decade after the first ascent and climbed it on trad gear. 

The climb took Anna two weeks of projecting between weather windows, and she was successful on her third redpoint attempt, after taking a big fall of around 10-12+ metres at the end of the run-out crux. 

American team make first ascent of a new line on Jannu's north face

In October, a team of three American climbers made an astonishing alpine-style first ascent involving new terrain on the rarely-climbed north face of Jannu (Khumbakarna) 7,710m in eastern Nepal. The team consisting of Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell and Alan Rousseau climbed over seven days and named their new line Round Trip Ticket ( M7 AI5+ A0) 2,700m.

The climb was dubbed 'the last great problem' in the Himalayas. Their ascent made waves even outside of the climbing world and was featured in a story by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Branch in The New York Times. If the three Americans are not honoured in next year's Piolet d'Or awards, something will be amiss. 

Jakob Schubert ticks Project Big 9c

It was a Big year for the Austrian. Jakob engaged us all in his livestreamed attempts on what would become the hardest route of his career to date.

Jakob's success on Project Big came just a month after he became the first male athlete to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics, having won both the men's combined Gold medal as well as the men's lead at the IFSC World Championships in Bern. In December, he capped his year off with an ascent of Alphane 9A and in doing so became the first person to tick both 9c and 9A.

Le Voyage E10 7a by Caroline Ciavaldini

In November, Caro Ciavaldini made the second female ascent of Le Voyage (8b+), E10 7a, in Annot, France.

The route, first established by Caro's husband James in 2017, has seen ascents from some of the world's best trad climbers, including Jacopo Larcher, Steve McClure, Ignacio Mulero, and Sébastien Berthe. Barbara Zangerl is the only other woman to have climbed the route.

Le Voyage is Caro's first route at E10, having made two ascents at E9, Olwen (E9 6c) earlier this year, and Chicama (E9 6c) in 2013.